Published at 13:07, Friday, 07 January 2011

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TROUTAL Farm, home to Alan and Chris Bradley, is a traditional working sheep farm nestled in the stunning Duddon Valley.

Having passed the hamlet of Seathwaite, the single track road takes you deep into the valley, far from the madding crowd with the Coniston fells rising majestically to the east.

Just when you start to question whether you’re on the right track you hit the farmhouse.

The canine chorus indicates we’ve reached our destination.

When you see the rainbow wall of rosettes in the hall there’s no question we’re at the right place.

The rosettes belong to Alan and his Border collies, but it’s his wife Chris who drives the business.

The Lake District Sheepdog Experience started as a sideline to their bed and breakfast accommodation three years ago and proved so popular it took over the B&B.

Instead of breakfasts, Chris now bakes cream teas for visitors and deals with all the bookings for people who want to try their hand at working a sheepdog.

Sitting around their huge dining room table, laid with pots of fresh coffee and home-baked scones, with West Highland white terrier, Kitty, observing the proceedings, Chris tells us how the Lake District Sheepdog Experience came to be.

“To cut a long story short, I would be serving a full English breakfast here because we had three bedrooms for B&B and once breakfast was cooked Alan would be able to go out training his young dogs,” explains Chris.

“There would be whistling going on and could I get folks down to breakfast?

“They would say: ‘can we just have five minutes more while we watch your husband?’

“A lot were genuinely interested in how the dogs were working.

“They would be rushing their breakfast, then it graduated to ‘would you mind if we stood a while and watched?’ or ‘could we stand in the field?’

“The conversation would come round to ‘how does that work?’; ‘how do you get involved in it?’

“Over a period of time, we started to attract more and more people interested in dogs, and the people interested in walking were being replaced by people who knew we trained sheepdogs here.”

It’s one thing to train a dog to herd sheep but quite a different thing to train a dog to work with complete strangers.

They don’t call it “one man and his dog” for no reason.

Even experienced handlers can struggle to work with sheepdogs other than their own.

That Alan has trained a team of six Border collies to work with strangers speaks volumes for his skill and natural intuition when it comes to working with these dogs. And he’s definitely a man whose actions speak louder than words.

He’s never sent a text or watched a football match in his life.

Alan’s passion is sheepdog trials. To acquire the number of rosettes and trophies he has requires regular training and endless patience.

To see him at work is to watch a master of his art.

With almost imperceptible signals he has Mac careering round the field, stopping abruptly, darting in the opposite direction, crouching, all the while keeping a respectful distance behind the sheep until the flock is steered from a rocky crag into the pen.

Alan never once gesticulates or even raises his voice.

The task now is for me to repeat the exercise with Smit.

If only it was as easy as it looked.

With only basic commands I’m supposed to gain Smit’s co-operation.

“Come bye” will send Smit to the left, clockwise around the sheep and “away” is the opposite.

But if the dog’s facing you the commands have to be switched accordingly. As easy as rubbing your tummy while patting your head.

Then there’s “lie down”, when you want to apply the brakes, and “walk on” when the dog is approaching the sheep.

I’ve always been very fond of Herdwicks, that is until they scarpered to the farthest corner of the field upon being released.

Quick as a flash, Smit was on their tails.

The commands were going well until it came to switching my lefts and rights and then you realise how intelligent these dogs are.

Shouting “away” when I should have been calling “come bye” Smit looked at me quizzically but obeyed my command sending the sheep in the wrong direction, away from the pen.

Luckily, Alan was on hand to offer assistance.

And it really doesn’t matter if you make mistakes. The sheep are confined to the field and it confirms to the dogs that us humans are just one notch up the food chain from the sheep – unless you’re Alan, of course, who’s king.

Chris reassures me: “Because you’re booking one or two hours, the whole idea is you’re in at the deep end. You get a feel of what it’s like and get a feel of working with sheep and working with dogs at a distance. We don’t expect you to be experts. We want you to have a bit of fun as well. If you go away happy, we’re delighted – and just about everybody does.”

The Sheepdog Experience has welcomed visitors from all over the world.

Language is no barrier.

“Funnily enough, people who don’t speak terribly good English almost get on better with them (the dogs) because they tend to mimic Alan rather than doing it themselves,” says Chris.

“The dogs pick up body language and voices quicker.

“An awful lot of people doing the Experience have never even owned a dog, but we’ve found that, particularly people from the cities, they’ve watched One Man and His Dog on TV and would love to experience doing it.”

To experience it yourself, the Lake District Sheepdog Experience is open all year round. For more details, visit www.lakedistrictsheepdogexperience.co.uk or contact Alan and Chris on 01229 716235.

Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk